An Exciting trip to town

included going to the Emergency Room

October 1, 2017 Sunday

Without access to my Toshiba, from the crash on Wednesday, this week, I cannot see info I had started for the blog this week, until I receive the new power supply (Laptop Charger) and can access the computer’s hard drive by charging the battery. Most likely, it will not arrive until late this Tuesday, at the earliest. I had not transferred the blog report to the newer DELL.
I’m fortunate to be getting pictures of the day (from accessing email to crew members) to use to report John’s snowy trip to Mt. Rainier for a WTA trail work party 10/1.

First 2 photos from Saturday, when John was not there:Previous to this weekend, the National Park trail crew cut Cedar trees and split rails. These and a dump truck of soil were then deposited at the beginning of the trail, just off the Sunrise parking lot. In the photos above, the WTA volunteers are bring the rails up the trail and installing them.

On Sunday, the weather was not so nice.Crew leader, Hannah; snow clouds over Rainier; Crew at work – John on left. A powered loader (aka: a totter) and an old fashioned wheel barrow helped get the soil up the trail:The front person (Eric), with a strap, helps “bump” the front wheel over the steps.
A second totter would not start (cold?) so the material for the tread (the soil) could not be brought as fast as the crew could spread it. There was a little down time and the crew needed to keep moving to counteract the cold.

They constructed a new volunteer – the little one in the pictures. She needed a hard hat, loaned by Gabby, tall gal in the green jacket. Nickname of the new one is “Two Tool.” (That’s John with empty buckets in the background.)

October 2, 2017 Monday

Missed SAIL because I’m still sick, and getting worse.

October 3, 2017 Tuesday

Missed Funercise, same reason as yesterday.

October 4, 2017 Wednesday

Missed Food Bank music; missed SAIL.

Went by Amy’s to drop off flowers & a black bag of music for tomorrow’s use at Rehab.Amy & Haley traded out our 5-gallon bucket for a nicer container; the vase’s location underneath a Sunflower painting by Amy.

John was driving, delivered the above things to her porch, and we went to the ER, arriving about noon. Once admitted, our time there was 2 hrs. 40 minutes with John staying with me. We lucked out and our doctor was Dr. Kenneth Lindsey, who is the Director of the ER unit. He is not there every day. Here’s the description of his diagnosis.

I went to ER for evaluation. I had 2 chest X-rays, (to assess for pneumonia), an influenza test (a swab way up each nostril), and a blood draw (several vials of blood)—one for a BMP (Blood Metabolic Profile), one for an INR (to assess my Coumadin blood thinner needs for dosage; done monthly, and I was 2 weeks overdue for the blood draw.) Diagnosis was it was not pneumonia, or the flu, but instead, it was a bacterial infection with common cold symptoms, which could be treated with an antibiotic. I was put on Amoxicillin, 3 times / day, for 10 days. He took me off MusinexDM®, because of the ineffectiveness of the drug for me, anyway. He said I would continue the coughing, mucous secretion, and would lessen the amount of water intake.

The BMP report came back while I was still there, showing my blood’s sodium was very low; so, the doctor recommended getting PowerAdeZERO, to replace the water I was drinking. I was flushing all the sodium from my blood. I have always heard when you are sick to drink a lot of fluids, and I was drinking a lot of water. I was on the 10th day of taking the only OTC cold remedy I am allowed to take because of heart issues, MusinexDM®, every 12 hours, and it required a full glass of water with each dose. I was using a 12-ounce glass of water, not just 8 ounces, but they also did not specify the amount of ounces in a glass of water. Seemed fine to me, and we have good tasting filtered well water by a Culligan unit. I use it for all my drinking water uses, and not the mineral well water.
BMP was the only one of the blood draws, whose report ER received while I was still there. My sodium was low at 122 mEq/L. The range is usually given as 133 – 146; so about 17% below the mid-point of that range.

Got home late (4:30), and found my Toshiba Laptop’s power supply had quit working, and so the battery was completely dead (I’d left it charging when we left the house), but as it is completely dead, there was no way to access it to send over the most important two things I needed sent to my other laptop, where I’m able to operate now with access to all my emails, and access to Google Earth, a calculator, and MS-Word. I need some software (SpO2) off that machine, and several Folders containing important information that had not yet been transferred over. Things such as information on Credit Cards we have and the usernames & passwords associated with accessing statements, postal mailing addresses, my medical records folder, health fitness folder, and lots more.

Before I got home from the ER, I had a telephone message from the nurse at ER, that my INR had come through, and it was very high, 7.7. It has never been higher than 4 as long as I have been taking Coumadin and being tested every month. The ER Dr. recommended the changed dosage on Coumadin, and requested a new one be drawn in 2 day on Friday with the BMP, he already recommended.

Luckily, with access to all my email accounts, I can keep up on communication, and it frees up some time to work on changing addresses of people, banks, cell service provider, and many other businesses, which send billing statements to that an old account we lose at the end of the year. Some of them I haven’t even thought of come in and I notify them right away, and wait for them to acknowledge; then take them off the nancyh@ellensburg.com address book. Please if this is the first you have heard that news and you have this account in your address book on your own email accounts, let me know (letting me know there is fine) and I will send you the account we are changing to immediately. It’s important you know the change as that will soon be our main address and the other will be gone with no forwarding possible. John has no interest in any of the rest of my multiple identities, such as the jobs list, music, nor the little I do on social media. So, we must change information meant for him, to that new joint Gmail account. Sadly, this is a huge chore, as our email address there is around the world in many places, having had that account since 1995.

October 5, 2017 Thursday

The Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends, played the music fine and I was able to report to the activity director the number of chairs to have available today for them, all 9 players, who don’t stand.

October 6, 2017 Friday

Oximetry for Oct 5, unavailable, because I lost access to the SpO2 Review software that only was stored on the Toshiba laptop.

I went by Amy’s house to pick up the Black Music Bag and my 5-gallon bucket, to find a present and a Get Well Card down in the bucket. They weren’t home.
Amy left a gift of fruit (Italian Plums & two Red Bartlett pears) with a lovely Get Well card, handcrafted by Amy and Haley, with Calligraphy by Amy, and a painting by Haley. Collage of these will have to wait until next week.

I’m very late now trying to get these corrections to John to put into the WordPress blog version to send up (Monday afternoon, 10/9/17).

Friday, I went to the Lab at the hospital for my BMP retake, and my INR retake. I have only heard the results of the INR from today (4.3), late from the Cle Elum clinic’s Coumadin nurse, Cody. She went over my change in dosages for tonight, tomorrow, Sunday, and this coming Tuesday. Now I know the BMP value of the sodium in my blood. It increased to 127, from 122 on Wednesday, so next week Thursday I will go for another BMP to see if has reached the minimum desired, of 133.

While in town, I bought a new digital thermometer and when I got home, I measured it at 3:59 p.m.; it was elevated slightly, at 99.2°F.

On my way home, I saw a new fire plume in the valley at 3:00 p.m. that was not there on my trip in at 1:00 p.m. I called friends who live on Hayward Hill, west of town with a good view toward Cle Elum, and they told me they had seen it too, and drove on up 97 to the Swauk-Teanaway Grange to check it out. They could see it was closer to Yellow Mountain, called Yellow Hill on Google Earth Pro. It was caused by people setting brush fires that got out of control. Why in the world would anyone set a fire with the high winds we were experiencing that day (up to 46 mph gusts) is beyond me.
October 6 fire that started at 3:00 p.m. and they got a strike team (helicopters with buckets putting water on it) ordered right away to stop it. Beyond the fire, to the left, is a large campground. That is on the site of an historic “company town” reached by narrow gauge railroad, horse, or foot.

Found an email for EastShore-Amazon Marketplace, today on the nancyh@ellensburg.com address book. It is where I purchased my Oximeter, fall of 2014, so I emailed them about getting the software that was on a mini-CD delivered with the purchase. I no longer know where it is, because I knew I could find the files needed on the TOSHIBA. They have not responded to that email.

John home 4:30 p.m. from Talapus Lake WTA trail maintenance work. They had a nice sunny day, but the Cascades were expected to get rain on Saturday into Sunday. He picked the correct day. The green-hat volunteers were all from the local Apple office.

Our USPS mail today brought a gift from cousin Ethel Reynolds, in Brookville, PA for us, via her daughter Pat Berlin. We received a commemorative deck of Playing Cards bought with a donation to the Clarion Library. The deck is full of old images on every card of pictures of buildings in Clarion County and Clarion, PA (John’s hometown). Thanks so much to Ethel! We really appreciate having and enjoying memories looking at them.The 10 of Hearts is the H.S. John graduated from; middle card is called “The Stone House”; and the Ace is the Hospital in Clarion where John had his tonsils removed.

[Link: The Old Stone House
Here are the Google Earth coordinates: 41.19020, -79.361356
In John’s time, the property had a small swimming pool with a bottom lined with black roofing paper. This was close to the Greenville Avenue road. Intersecting roads are Stoney Lonesome Rd. and the Stone House Road. As an address, John thinks Stoney Lonesome is an awesome name. Oh, and the Greenville Ave. road is the way they went to visit Ethel and family those many years ago, another 1-2/3 miles.]

I took all my night pills on my way to bed at 12:25 a.m. (I’d stayed up to do a FULL dishwasher of dishes—so we and the cats had plates to eat from, and we had stainless steel “silverware” to use. Everything was dirty, including all the coffee cups).

Saturday, October 7
Oximetry for Oct 6, unavailable, because I lost access to the SpO2 Review software that only was stored on the Toshiba laptop.

I do have pictures to include that to get your attention, but you will see them all and a video, by clicking on the link above.

My temperature at 4:20 p.m. was 99.1°F.

Sunday, October 8

Oximetry for Oct 7, unavailable, because I lost access to the SpO2 Review software that only was stored on the Toshiba laptop. Did sleep 9 hrs. last night.

Morning stats: My temperature at 8:10 a.m. was 97.8°. The average normal body temperature is generally accepted as 98.6°F. Some studies have shown the “normal” body temperature can have a wide range, from 97°F to 99°F. Mine is normally a little under 98.6. A temperature over 100.4°F most often means a fever caused by an infection or illness.
BP at 10:15 a.m. = 131/70 pulse 65, this infection has consistently raised my BP over the past week or more, but I can adjust my dosage of Entresto, to lower it twice/day, as seen below.

John also told me how he makes collages on his machine, and I will try that right away on the Dell: put images together on Word in with white space between, and SNIP it. I’ll try that now. My normal way with PPT and Snagit, was not working on the Dell. I succeeded, as in the first collage above. Tonight (since 6:32, now 8:17), I scanning on John’s computer and sent a jpg of Clarion Playing cards, to my computer. Seemed like forever.

I just updated the USPS tracking, and found it’s POSSIBLE my Laptop Charger may get here tomorrow night !! Latest info shows it leaving from Newark, CA, through Oakland, CA to Yakima this morning at 6:00 a.m., Yakima is our regional mail distribution center, left there at 9:09 a.m. today, and it is only 30 miles away. Should get there in time for our mail delivery person to sort it in his car, but he does not deliver our mail until very late some days. Friday’s mail was not there at 5:30, but John saw the Jeep going up the road. We didn’t get our mail or our paper (a different carrier), until Saturday a.m.
Now I know that delivery won’t happen until tomorrow night (Tuesday) because of the national holiday.

October 9, 2017 Monday—Holiday, Columbus Day

Just found out this is a holiday, when a call to our local bank did not go through.